Deity Dictates
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: A request for conversation s  between Peeta & Cinna, as we given so few in canon. This is four one-shots taken from within completely different places in canon.
1. A Commonplace, Stale Situation

**Prompt:** Peeta & Cinna. _'A dog, a slave, we do what our deity dictates'_  
**Author:** **wanderlustlover**  
**Recipient:** **dynastessa**  
**Summary: **A request for conversation(s) between Peeta & Cinna, as we given so few in canon. This is four one-shots taken from within completely different places in canon.  
**Spoilers: **This covers canon through the middle of book two.  
**Disclaimer:** All things The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins.

**Part I Setting: Training before Hunger Games 74**

_'T is a commonplace, stale situation,  
Now the curtain comes down from above_  
- "Da Capo" by Henry Bunner

"No, you cannot make a thorn into a rose," Cinna replied. Both too careful and too easy. Like everything else here. Guarded. What you saw was never what you go with The Capital.

"But," he said, with more emphasis, as his dark eyes settled somewhere in the expanse the balcony overlooked. Then his head tilted, slowly, considering, even though his hair didn't stir at all. For the movement or the breeze. "You can make a thorn look like a rose to people who have never seen a rose. People who have been dreaming of the idea of a rose."

The Capitol, Cinna and Portia and Effie's world, twinkled beyond them. More enchanting than the vast explosion of stars above District 12 when the lights shuddered off each night. And never less than more deadly for its seduction of appearing innocent. Compelling. Racy. Dream fulfilling. The way the second designer's words tried to climb up and wind into Peeta's mind.

Who was having none of it. None of their pandering or poking. No kindness. They had taken him and stripped him bare. He wouldn't thank them for it. There was only bluntness, as he looked over his shoulder at the noise of another arrival. "And her?"

Her. Katniss Everdeen. Accented and then shadowed by the door she'd yanked open, as it crashed back closed behind her. Sullen and scowling as she stomped toward the table, her hair, even tied back, trying to escape, screaming of its inability to even behave for her own brush.

And yet. There was something there. Something in the wildness of her anger, her fast movements, her utter lack of grace, her denial to even pretend conversation with her captors. In the way she glared at Haymitch and Effie alike. And tried her hardest to glare at the table with more food than either of them had ever seen.

She didn't play at all. She didn't conceal. All of her sharp edges, hatred and honesty, like the banging pots in the Black Market.

"Sometimes you have to force people-" Cinna's voice snapped him from the image, from Katniss Everdeen who always captivated him somehow, causing his teeth to grit, but never stopping, "-to see that the thorn is the rose they've been dreaming of," before he walked off to the table.

All suddenly, brilliantly with a welcoming smile as he put himself in Katniss's way, with calm, even words about costume ideas, as though he had said nothing at all.


	2. A Travesty Romance, for Love

**Part II Setting: During the Summer/Fall between Hunger Games 74 and The Victory Tour**

_On the end of our little flirtation—  
A travesty romance; for Love_  
- "Da Capo" by Henry Bunner

Portia walked away, a riot of finitely controlled impatient annoyance, hands balled up in the wings of extra fabric in her strange shaped shirt. Barely managing his mocking-kindness as he'd given her directions to his parents' bakery. Not that she hadn't been before, in the waves of interviews and recordings during the first weeks of their return to District 12, but he never expected them to remember this world.

And he didn't consider it his anymore anyway. The bakery. He didn't live with his family in the bakery anymore, and they didn't live with him in the house in Victor's Village. It was an icy divide that was only occasionally breached by his brothers. Or his own melancholy need.

"You should be nicer to her."

Peeta was surprised, by the way of further annoyed, to see Cinna standing on the steps to Katniss's house. Watching him with a stillness that meant he might have been there the whole time. Since the door slammed open all through everything he'd said. Which made him feel more culpable, and angry for caring. At the whole conversation had and before it; people snooping into their lives again.

"She should stop thinking she gets a vote, then."

"She's trying to make this easier on you," he replied, walking toward Peeta's own yard, where he was standing, unmoving. A stripling tree, wide, but not ground well in how he glanced around, tension at the edges of his eyes, as though to make sure no one else was going to pop out from the house next door.

"Right." Was sharp, but he hadn't stepped back toward his house. "And you're, what? Her defender? What exactly is going on between the two of you?"

Cinna stopped not too far from him , eyebrows raised in a way Peeta associated purely with either his father's often silent, but all too expressive face, implicating his temper, or the pause right before Haymitch's drunken, corrosive laughter would exploded.

It was game even when Cinna replied. "I haven't asked you how the two of you are doing, either."

"That isn't any of your business. Why do-"

"You're right. It isn't." He agreed, right over Peeta trying to continue on. "But you've made it everyone's business now. The both of you."

Peeta rolled his eyes, even though his gaze shifted, noting that Portia had finally gotten out of sight of Victor's Village. He wondered what she make of the shops, starting first with the Candy store. Which was a fond favorite of most people, but it was still ramshackle compared to even the smallest, most underwhelming, store he'd seen in the Capitol.

Anything. Anything that was not focusing on the razor sharp divide between what the whole of Panem thought of Star-Crossed Lovers and The Truth About Katniss and Peeta, the one the summer, and the whole of District 12, was clear on.

"They'll find something more interesting. It won't take them long."

"Don't bet on that. Finnick is still everyone's pretty boy even now, when he might be pretty but he's so much less than a boy. And all he did was win."

It's hard for Peeta tell if the drift in Cinna's voice is apologetic or rebuke. It's edged in sardonic resignation, but there was something else in it, too. And he hates that he knows how true it is. How they'll both have to invert all these truths when the train comes for them in the winter.

Be what they made themselves and not who they were.  
They would never get off on just being the winners of The Game.

And he knew he was as wild, now, not knowing who he was, as Katniss was in the beginning.

"It's why she's holding off. And why she's here. We aren't required to be," Cinna added.

Peeta knew he'd been too quiet for too long when a response was required.  
Finnick. And Portia, who'd been trying to convince him to paint one 'nice' painting.

But the follow up was confusing, and his brows furrowed as he looked back to the man, who in all his sharp black clothing still looked nothing like his own city. No animalistic or jewel-like implants or dying of his skin or hair. No blatant greed or starstruckness in his eyes. His clothes nice, but subdue for his world. For the costumes and facades he birthed.

"How long do you think you honestly have left, Peeta? Before they drag you back up on those stages, dressed as their new favorite characters, and push you back into a couch together? Relive the glory of your miracle romance? Start calling for your engagement? Planning your wedding? Gifting you a house in the city? Asking for populace wide suggestions on the names of your children?"


	3. If He Climbed in Disguise to your Lattic

**Part III Setting: The Victory Tour**

_If he climbed in disguise to your lattice,  
Fell dead of the first kisses' pain_  
- "Da Capo" by Henry Bunner

"Everything alright?"

Peeta blinked and looked up at the intrusive voice, giving his eyes a moment to focus on Cinna. The room behind him so bright it haloed his form in the doorway, while shadowing the actual shapes of his facial features and the lines of his outfit.

Peeta reached up and ruffled his own hair, not sure if he was more affecting or admitting as he spoke. "Yeah. I just needed a moment away from the crowd. All the talking."

"Do you mind if I-" It broke off as a gesture toward the bench that was one large planter and a vining plant away from Peeta's own. "I can always find a different spot. These houses are full of small retreats."

"Don't worry about it. Sit." Peeta shook his head, while reaching out and straightening his cuffs. More aware of his clothing near Cinna and Portia than any other time really. It wasn't about nerves or self-esteem. It was about respecting art more since he started painting, starting talking to so many people about their food styles, and understanding they were living art pieces to their designer's jobs.

Which was not the same as being so to Portia and Cinna themselves.

Still. The thoughts about it evoked commentary. "Your new dress seems to be a hit. I have to admit I was surprised you convinced her to learn how to dance in those heels."

Cinna smiled, easy and proud. But the one that never touched his eyes. He was looking between the flower in the planter next to him and Peeta, himself. "The heels might have been my doing, and worth the two screaming fits, but the dancing was all you."

Peeta laughed, some surprise and, perhaps, very faint pleasure, there, but his amusement was about as drawn and distant as Cinna's before him. They settled into a silence that could have been as companionable as it was compulsory.

They all traveled together now, making these rounds, making it through all of this. The screaming crowds and the silent train hours. Presenting themselves before official after official, rich citizen after rich citizen, poor people stuffed into squares for pre-written speeches. Interviews and exposes. Cooks' traveled to talk to him. Every new event in every new place with a new outfit. It was amazing half the train wasn't a wardrobe closet.

Katniss's new dress didn't matter to him really. He wouldn't really care about what color it was by the tomorrow morning. The only dress that ever lingered in his mind was the yellow one. The small yellow one, that was like she was light up with sunshine. The last time he saw her when they were happy, when he'd thought they were in love.

Peeta didn't know what they were now. In love. Afraid of love. In debt. Still alive. In survival mode. Sleeping in each other's arms to keep hell at bay and not always looking at each other during the day if they weren't required to perform saccrine acts toward their miraculously lifesaving need for each other.

Especially since each new stop on The Victory Tour only further emphasized not only what that act had meant for them and their lives, but what it meant for every single life of the people watching it. It was nearly impossible not to see it. One lit candle threatened to spark a forest fire. Theirs.

Different music started and played through and stopped several times before Peeta looked to his side and then, very decidedly and smoothly, scooted over toward the planter. He reached out a finger and pressed its tip into the dirt there lightly.

The movement was slow enough to be specific when it first started. He drew a circle in the dirt, and without looking up, followed it up with beginning to make a shape in the center. Even without icing or paints, any color except brown, with small furrowing dirt mountains building where he drew, it was obvious.

An oval inside a loop. He had just started to give it upper lines when Cinna's hands tightening on the seat of the bench beside his thighs. Peeta drew a line out to where the tip of one wing wound be. "I want to talk to you."

The hands stayed tight in his peripheral vision another few seconds, before they released the bench, lacing together and ending up in Cinna's lap. "If you're having issues with Portia's designs I wouldn't mind helping you. I understand she can be a little exuberant where it's coming to matching to each of the new district's. I could fit you in after breakfast and maybe talk to her around after it?"

Not now. Peeta didn't glanced at the man's face. The message was clear. Not now, not here, but he wasn't denying it. Something Haymitch would have tried to do at least. "I would appreciate that."

Peeta's finger was already drawing a spiral from the inside of the loop out, the lazy, line spiring ever outward, having already replaced the once all but Mockingjay symbol. "She seems to have this fascination with scales, and while I'm willing to go broad-"

He said, standing up, as he brushed his fingers together to rid them of the dirt and looked over at Katniss's designer with blasé ease. "I'm thinking the outfit she showed me for our next District presentation is a little too over the top for me."

Those dark eyes were settled on him. So still, weighing, and searching for something. That he never knew if they found or not, because then Cinna opened his mouth again, with a shake of his head. "Do you know why they love you?"

Peeta could feel the line that furrowed on his forehead.

He really wasn't in the mood for anything like this tonight.

"You arrived before them like a Career. All shine, and no pride. You made them laugh, and talked about honestly how you were learning their world, never humiliated, but only endeared to it. You didn't stand before them and try to impress them or demand their pity. You talked to the whole nation as though each of them was the brand new, forever awaited, member of your very own secret club."

"You handed them your deepest secret like it was easy," was added as Peeta's straight posture and clenched hands seemed to be finally reaching his mouth as his jaw tightened. "And then you proved you'd do anything to keep it. Gave them something they could believe in and dream about, attach to, associate with."

Cinna stood up, "They think of you like a lost prince, saved by the glory of The Games. Gold mined from the coal. Shining and bright, and one of them at the core."

"I will never be one of them," Peeta's voice was knife sharp in the quiet.

Not even if Snow demanded. Not even if Katniss needed it.

Cinna's mouth twisted, a crooked line in the shadows. His voice empty and pitying all at once, as he raised a hand to motion for Peeta to lead the way back in. "We're well aware."


	4. One Thing is Left Us Now

**Part IV Setting: The Night Before the last Interviews (and the grand costume unveiling) & Quart Quell/Hunger Games 75**

_But one thing is left us now; that is—  
Begin it again_  
- "Da Capo" by Henry Bunner

Peeta had gotten up for the bathroom, and detoured for water.

Preparation for the Quarter Quell was hellish. Because no one knows exactly what it would be, but everyone knew it has been designed with only one goal in mind: the brutal murder of the Star Crossed Lovers, and hopefully with it, the eradication of the Rebellion they'd unwittingly started. The one no one was quite sure how aware or unaware Katniss is about.

They trained in everything. They trained in nothing. They talked. They didn't talk. There was a helpless inevitability in everything. Effie never stopped sniffing even when she was smiling. Even when everyone, including Effie, sniped at each other, in a need to be able to do something.

They didn't pretend to be discreet in sharing the same cabin in the train this time. Katniss slept, but less restful hours. The nightmares came more frequently the closer they got. Peeta didn't sleep much at all. When exhaustion claimed him only. Most nights he laid awake and watched her breathe. The flicker of her eyelids. The way her hair worked itself into mats.

The beauty of the girl who was his fiancé, but would never be his wife.

The last truly perfect day of his incredibly messed-up life.

He hadn't planned to detour toward the kitchen.

Or to bump into Cinna on the way there.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

Peeta didn't have a shirt but he'd shrugged, the night and the company lacking reasons for a self-conscious response. "If I don't I assume there are some new kinds of shots my megalomaniac team will give me, to make me look like I've had the most radiant rest for the last year. I could ask you the same thing?"

"I didn't sleep much the last night before your last interview either."

"Last weeks'?" Peeta asked, weakly, as he squinted against the lights of the kitchen compartment flickering on due only to their stepping inside the room.

Cinna shook his head, "The last one before the 74th Game."

"Worried we won't do well?" Peeta tried to make it flippant and light.

They were all down to hours left that they might ever see any of these people ever again.

The trio on each of their design teams walked around with puffy red eyes, swollen mouths, and bitten nails. Haymitch almost always had a bottle. Which wasn't new, but he had an alternate habit, of mysteriously going missing for an hour or two, that had Peeta watching him closer than the drinks did.

Cinna didn't say anything and Peeta watched him walk to cabinets. Grabbing a first glass, then leaving a hand hovering over a second as he glanced back to the blonde boy with the question spread across his conflicted features. Peeta nodded, looking over the room as he waited.

"You'll both do fine," Cinna finally said, holding out the filled glass.

"Then?" Peeta prompted the topic that needed no words.

Which Cinna's expression seemed to contain. That and so much more he couldn't make out. Seconds passed toward a minute and Peeta considered apologizing. He wasn't the same person he'd been the last time he'd been headed into the games. He'd gone toe to toe with Haymitch about being owed for being abandoned the first and sold his golden ticket, without so much as looking at it, for Katniss to come home. Again.

He'd told Haymitch he'd get into any bed it required if he didn't agree.

Peeta drank his water, watching the man not too far from him.

Then decided to try a completely different tactic.

"You've been wearing make-up."

Cinna's mouth moved, turning toward a smile as he shook his head, blinking out of whatever set of thoughts he'd fallen into during their mutual silence. "I do that sometimes, Peeta. I'm a designer."

"No, you don't." Peeta corrected, his mouth turning toward a frown. With a caveat, "You've never done it before the way you've been doing it lately. Not even when they were interviewing you about the flaming costumes."

Not garish and nothing that stood out as wanting to grab attention. Thin and specifically applied, like veneer. To conceal what neither of the trio teams or Effie could. Cinna's make-up was portraiture. An art. A necessity.

The same as how he only displays the severity of his sympathy in side glances toward them, when they are otherwise busy with Effie or Haymitch. The only hints that he is just as concerned as everyone else. Placed behind smiles and designs and jokes about needing to shine Katniss up again after her last six months in the rough.

"I just-" He just what? Wanted to say somehow it was okay, when absolutely nothing was okay with any of them anymore. And he would be murdered on TV in a number of days, for the person he could barely live with the thought of living without. Peeta awkwardly tilted his water glass in his two hands. "-wanted you to know I noticed."

There was a long beat of silence as Cinna looked at the glass in his own hand, before he spoke, quietly, with incredibly mixed emotion to it. "Good. Some of us don't want to be remembered best for our ability to conceal."


End file.
